Silencing the Schools
The Quiet Power Grab You Might’ve Missed
Dispatches from Kentucky | October 2025
By Kelly Young
Last week, I saw a headline that barely made a ripple:
“KY lawmaker proposes ban on taxpayer-funded school district lobbying.”
That might sound like a procedural tweak—something about budgets, ethics, or waste. But when I read deeper, the alarm bells started ringing.
Because this is not a policy fix. It’s a power grab.
And it’s one more step in a coordinated, quiet campaign to strip public institutions—especially public schools—of the power to fight back.
A seemingly simple proposal
Let’s start with what’s being proposed.
A Kentucky state legislator has introduced a bill to ban school districts from using public funds to hire lobbyists. The bill’s sponsor says it’s about protecting taxpayers and ensuring “accountability.” The trigger? Fayette County Public Schools reportedly paid a lobbying firm $38,000 to help advocate for a tax increase—even while the district was facing a budget deficit.
That might seem wasteful at first glance. But what’s missing from this story is what that lobbying was for—and what this ban would actually do.
Because here’s the thing: public schools are under attack. They are routinely asked to implement new laws, absorb unfunded mandates, and navigate political firestorms over everything from school books to classroom flags. In that landscape, school districts need advocates—people who understand policy, can track legislation, and can speak up for students when no one else will.
This bill would cut that off. And the timing is no accident.
Who loses power? And who keeps it?
Let’s be clear about what’s really happening here.
This bill doesn’t ban all lobbying. It doesn’t stop private Christian schools or conservative think tanks from flooding the Capitol with talking points. It doesn’t ban LifeWise Academy—a national religious franchise with a grant from the Heritage Foundation—from lobbying school boards.
It only bans public schools from having a voice in Frankfort.
That’s not budget reform. That’s structural silencing.
Imagine you’re a school board member in a small, underfunded district. You’re trying to protect your district’s autonomy and ensure your students don’t lose access to arts, counseling, or library staff. But you can’t afford to send someone to Frankfort every week. So your district pools funds with others to hire a shared advocate—someone who can speak on behalf of hundreds of kids and families across the state.
Under this bill, that’s what would be banned.
But wealthy private interests? Still fine. National religious groups? Still fine. Out-of-state lobbyists trying to impose a political agenda on Kentucky schools? Still fine.
This bill doesn’t reduce influence in Frankfort. It just redistributes it—away from democratically accountable school boards and toward whoever has the deepest pockets.
Why authoritarian regimes target education
If you’ve been following this newsletter for a while, you’ve seen me write about the pillars of authoritarianism. And one of the most consistent targets—historically and right now—is public education.
Why?
Because public schools:
Teach critical thinking.
Celebrate diversity and pluralism.
Build civic identity.
Are governed locally.
Represent one of the few places where the public still has a say.
To authoritarian movements, that’s a threat.
So they do what they’ve always done:
Defund the schools.
Distract the public with moral panics.
Divide communities over “values.”
Dismantle institutional power, bit by bit.
This lobbying ban proposal is a textbook example.
It doesn’t say “we want to silence schools.” It says “we just want to make sure your money isn’t being wasted.” It sounds reasonable on the surface—but its real impact is deep and chilling.
It strips one of the few remaining tools school boards have to fight back against harmful legislation—at the very moment they’re being flooded with it.
Connecting the dots: What else is happening in Kentucky?
This proposal didn’t come out of nowhere. It’s part of a much larger pattern we’re watching across Kentucky:
Religious instruction programs like LifeWise are expanding, with the backing of out-of-state lobbyists and dark money.
Book bans are accelerating—targeting LGBTQ+ themes, racial history, and mental health content.
School board members are being harassed, recalled, and replaced in coordinated campaigns.
Bills targeting “controversial” content or teacher speech are being introduced every session.
And now, this bill says: “Let’s make sure the people who work in schools can’t even speak up about what’s happening.”
This isn’t reform. This is regime-building.
It’s slow. It’s quiet. It’s bureaucratic. But make no mistake: it’s the erosion of democratic infrastructure—by design.
Local control under siege
One of the things I’ve come to respect about Kentucky is the fierce commitment to local control. We’re a state that doesn’t like being told what to do from Washington—or even from Frankfort.
But authoritarianism doesn’t just come from the top down. Sometimes it comes sideways, cloaked in bills like this one—proposals that quietly strip school boards of power, prevent communities from organizing, and funnel influence to national networks instead of local families.
If you take away a district’s ability to hire lobbyists, you’re not leveling the playing field. You’re tilting it even further in favor of out-of-state agendas and political ideologues.
And that’s not local control. That’s occupation by other means.
So what do we do?
Here’s what I hope people take away from this:
Watch the boring bills. They’re often the ones that carry the sharpest blades.
Don’t let anyone convince you schools should be silent. Advocacy isn’t the problem—it’s the only defense we’ve got.
Push back early. This bill is just starting to make its way through the legislature. We still have time to organize, speak up, and flood the inboxes of our lawmakers.
And if you’re reading this from outside Kentucky, take this as a warning: your state is next.
These proposals are moving in lockstep across red states—and they’re being coordinated, tested, and refined.
The goal isn’t just to take over school boards.
It’s to make sure that even the school boards that resist can’t speak.
Final thoughts
There’s a quote I keep coming back to:
“Democracy dies in darkness—but it also dies in committee.”
This bill probably won’t make national headlines. It won’t spark a wave of think pieces. But it matters. And if we want to keep our democracy alive, we have to start paying attention to everything that’s meant to make us stop paying attention.
This is one of those moments.
Let’s make noise.
Let’s defend our schools.
Let’s call this what it is—and push back while we still can.
—Kelly